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The Next Step

It’s hard work starting a business; especially a boat repair business. It’s dirty, hard work that seems to never go according to plan. So I ask myself “Now what?” How do Dan and I streamline the process so that we are more affective at repairs and less affective and making mistakes/errors? Something else to consider are materials and what are the BEST materials for the repairs we are doing? I know it took Vespoli, Resolute, Pocock, Hudson, etc. years of testing to determine the absolute best materials for their boats. Pocock alone has been around for more than 100 years!!

As a repair shop, you have to be knowledgeable of every single boat out there. You need to know what kind of paints they use, what kind of core do they have (honeycomb or high density foam), do they have a wet sanded surface or not? There are so many intricacies to a rowing shell it would make your head spin.

So….Now What? Is it best for us to have a “trial and error” mentality or do we take a step back and spend more time learning the materials? Well, Dan and I spent 6 months researching and learning the business and we are finding that we learn something new everyday. For example, the incredible difference between single stage and two-stage paints! Or the difference between using bondo or other fillers and how they react to fiberglass and epoxy. How about learning the difference between a block-sanded finish and a hand-finish sand job?

Each day we are learning more and more about the business and what it takes to be successful in shell repair. So…now what? I think we keep learning and keep spending our mornings and nights researching and seeing what REALLY works vs what KIND of works. And at the end of the day, we still do some trial and error. I know we will make boats go fast again!